Article
(Reuters) - France and Spain led a Europe-wide push on Thursday to get U.S. Internet giant Google to change its policies on collecting user data.
News that the U.S. National
Security Agency under the Prism surveillance program secretly gathered
user data from nine U.S. companies, including Google, to track people's movements and contacts makes the timing especially sensitive for Google.
France's data protection watchdog (CNIL) said Google had broken French law and gave it three months to change its privacy policies or risk a fine of up to 150,000 euros ($200,000).
Spain's
Data Protection Agency (AEPD) told Google it would be fined between
40,000 euros and 300,000 for five violations of the law, that it had
failed to be clear about what it did with data, may be processing a
"disproportionate" amount and holding onto it for an "undetermined or
unjustified" period of time.
Whoa , this is unexpected.
Google is a USA company. It must follow USA laws. But what happens when those USA laws are in conflict with other nations laws, especially in the area of Data Privacy ? Is negotiating with France and Spain actually going to do anything when the USA holds the strings to the puppet and can make them do anything ?
How many violations of privacy laws will it take, that Google has no control over it must do , will it take before all USA computer companies start getting banned from providing services to these countries ? One can already immagine local competiters drooling in anticipation of google, yahoo, and the like getting booted out of their little ponds.
All thanks to the antics of the USA government.
It's a new age out there, a post PRISM age.
And it's not Snowdens fault (the guy who leaked the existance of PRISM) because one of the first things any intelligence agency learns is that "two people can keep a secret , but only if one of them is dead" , so they must know that it is inevitable that all secrets eventually come to light. What did they think would happen when people found out you're recording every phone call in the world ? Every email , every facebook posting ?
This won't be boring , that's for sure.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
he EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Article
The EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding plans to raise the concerns with US Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday.
Last week a series of leaks by a former CIA worker led to claims the US had a vast surveillance network with much less oversight than previously thought.
The US insists its snooping is legal under domestic law.
Let me take a moment to answer the EU's concerns , and the rest of the worlds concerns, in this matter.
1. The USA assures us that under their own laws that they get to make up , that say anything they want them to say , they are acting in a perfectly legal manner.
2. The USA assures us that the "traiter" who let everyone know that the USA was lying proflifically to everyone in the world will be prosecuted to the full extent of any law the USA may have already invented out of thin air , or might invent in the future. It is their intention to make this guy an example to all , just like they're doing to the wikileaks guy , that they will not tolerate being caught laying, not by anyone.
3. The USA will now give you the usual lies , I mean assurances , that this will never happen again and you're all perfectly safe and shouldn't worry about it.
4. No , the USA will not consider simply telling everyone in the world "We're spying on you all. If you're a terrorist , your only option for secure communications is a network of carrier pidgeons. " despite the fact that this is probably the truth.
5. It is unlikely that Obama , or any us president , will understand how a person screened for loyalty to the USA , who is specially selected for his desire to protect and defend his country , who truely believes in the ideals of his country (freedom , and privacy in particular) could ever betray them just because they've sold their countries morals down the river for short term gain.
In closing, I'd like to paraphrase President Obama.
"Don't worry , be happy. No one is listening in on all your phone calls. "
The EU is demanding assurances that Europeans are not having their rights infringed by a massive US surveillance programme.
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding plans to raise the concerns with US Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday.
Last week a series of leaks by a former CIA worker led to claims the US had a vast surveillance network with much less oversight than previously thought.
The US insists its snooping is legal under domestic law.
Let me take a moment to answer the EU's concerns , and the rest of the worlds concerns, in this matter.
1. The USA assures us that under their own laws that they get to make up , that say anything they want them to say , they are acting in a perfectly legal manner.
2. The USA assures us that the "traiter" who let everyone know that the USA was lying proflifically to everyone in the world will be prosecuted to the full extent of any law the USA may have already invented out of thin air , or might invent in the future. It is their intention to make this guy an example to all , just like they're doing to the wikileaks guy , that they will not tolerate being caught laying, not by anyone.
3. The USA will now give you the usual lies , I mean assurances , that this will never happen again and you're all perfectly safe and shouldn't worry about it.
4. No , the USA will not consider simply telling everyone in the world "We're spying on you all. If you're a terrorist , your only option for secure communications is a network of carrier pidgeons. " despite the fact that this is probably the truth.
5. It is unlikely that Obama , or any us president , will understand how a person screened for loyalty to the USA , who is specially selected for his desire to protect and defend his country , who truely believes in the ideals of his country (freedom , and privacy in particular) could ever betray them just because they've sold their countries morals down the river for short term gain.
In closing, I'd like to paraphrase President Obama.
"Don't worry , be happy. No one is listening in on all your phone calls. "
Saturday, June 01, 2013
Internet at Home
Article = none, personal experience
Ok, it turns out my land lady doesn't have camera's everywhere spying on us through the internet. Apparently there was an outage a week or so ago , and I heard the other residence in the hall talking about how "a lot of people depend on that router for their internet".
Take that with her comment about how expensive internet is , and a quick peek at the rogers internet page shows it's 10$ / gigabyte for overages , and she was talking about how she was paying a lot of overages ... yeah she just doesn't want any new users on her modem. It's too expensive.
My phone has internet , they charge me 8$ / month for it. I phoned them up and they said it was a five gigabyte limit. (apparently "unlimited" internet is pretty limited).
Yes , I'd tried my phone before at my old place, my brothers basement. I got cut off every five minutes. But here at my new place on the other side of town , or should I say NOT on the very edge of Ottawa where if you walk across the street to the shopping mall and try to go behind it you find nothing but trees for the next one hundred kilometers , reception is considerably improved. I can actually hold a steady connection and play for two hours at a time.
Installing World of Warcraft is 22 gigabytes , I had to bring my lap top over to a friends place and use their connection , but after I got it going , a week of fairly steady playing was only 240 megabytes , less than a quarter of one gigabyte.
Good enough.
Guess I'm online again.
Ok, it turns out my land lady doesn't have camera's everywhere spying on us through the internet. Apparently there was an outage a week or so ago , and I heard the other residence in the hall talking about how "a lot of people depend on that router for their internet".
Take that with her comment about how expensive internet is , and a quick peek at the rogers internet page shows it's 10$ / gigabyte for overages , and she was talking about how she was paying a lot of overages ... yeah she just doesn't want any new users on her modem. It's too expensive.
My phone has internet , they charge me 8$ / month for it. I phoned them up and they said it was a five gigabyte limit. (apparently "unlimited" internet is pretty limited).
Yes , I'd tried my phone before at my old place, my brothers basement. I got cut off every five minutes. But here at my new place on the other side of town , or should I say NOT on the very edge of Ottawa where if you walk across the street to the shopping mall and try to go behind it you find nothing but trees for the next one hundred kilometers , reception is considerably improved. I can actually hold a steady connection and play for two hours at a time.
Installing World of Warcraft is 22 gigabytes , I had to bring my lap top over to a friends place and use their connection , but after I got it going , a week of fairly steady playing was only 240 megabytes , less than a quarter of one gigabyte.
Good enough.
Guess I'm online again.
Stupid Salesmen Tricks
Article = none , personal experience
Ok. I got on disability , finally , and they sent me a nice big check , a double sized one actually , and then some. So I did a little shoping and I got myself an android phone.
And that was not a nice story.
The bottom of the line phone is 139$ and they were out of stock. And they weren't interested in selling me the demo model that they had on display. There was a 200$ one , but I was feeling pretty robbed because they were displaying a phone they didn't actually have for sale , the old bait and switch game.
So I hopped on a bus and I went over to the next shopping mall along the transit way (3 minute ride) and thought I'd try it again.
Big mistake.
The guy played me like a fish. Promised a big discount no problem , let me handle the phone and play with it , showed me a few tricks on it. Then suddenly he didn't know how to enter the discount in his computer. And no he wouldn't give me a rain check , he had to phone his manager for that and he already tried twice ....
... and I remember walking by this joker in the shopping mall a few weeks earlier, and he was explaining to a new salesman about how you con people , phone your own home phone because you know no one will answer (you're there at work) , say you can't work the computer what are they going to do ? You can't let them touch it can you ?
I knew he was doing it, but I had my heart set on a new phone , and I'd already been at this a few hours bouncing around... so I caved in and payed the full price.
Honestly , 200$ + tax isn't a bad price for the phone I got , but it's the principle that I got conned , that's what ticks me off.
It's a Huawei U8681 running Android 4.0.3 and it has 2 gigs of ram (well , it reports 1.98 ... close enough) and it cost 200$ , 236$ when all was said and done.
I hate the stunts salesmen pull... but I see this phone or phones like it for 400$ or more at other stores ...
Ok. I got on disability , finally , and they sent me a nice big check , a double sized one actually , and then some. So I did a little shoping and I got myself an android phone.
And that was not a nice story.
The bottom of the line phone is 139$ and they were out of stock. And they weren't interested in selling me the demo model that they had on display. There was a 200$ one , but I was feeling pretty robbed because they were displaying a phone they didn't actually have for sale , the old bait and switch game.
So I hopped on a bus and I went over to the next shopping mall along the transit way (3 minute ride) and thought I'd try it again.
Big mistake.
The guy played me like a fish. Promised a big discount no problem , let me handle the phone and play with it , showed me a few tricks on it. Then suddenly he didn't know how to enter the discount in his computer. And no he wouldn't give me a rain check , he had to phone his manager for that and he already tried twice ....
... and I remember walking by this joker in the shopping mall a few weeks earlier, and he was explaining to a new salesman about how you con people , phone your own home phone because you know no one will answer (you're there at work) , say you can't work the computer what are they going to do ? You can't let them touch it can you ?
I knew he was doing it, but I had my heart set on a new phone , and I'd already been at this a few hours bouncing around... so I caved in and payed the full price.
Honestly , 200$ + tax isn't a bad price for the phone I got , but it's the principle that I got conned , that's what ticks me off.
It's a Huawei U8681 running Android 4.0.3 and it has 2 gigs of ram (well , it reports 1.98 ... close enough) and it cost 200$ , 236$ when all was said and done.
I hate the stunts salesmen pull... but I see this phone or phones like it for 400$ or more at other stores ...
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